Lenovo Secures First Gold Laptop Certification

Lenovo has become the first company to earn the highest rating in the laptop category of UL Environment’s Sustainable Product Certification (SPC) for high-tech equipment, the company has announced.

The ThinkPad T420, to be launched later this month, won a Gold SPC rating.

The UL determined the product’s compliance with the IEEE 1680 sustainability standard and with Energy Star 5.0 requirements. It assessed product documentation, physically examined product samples and conducted onsite audits of manufacturing facilities. Criteria included the elimination or reduction of certain hazardous substances.

The T420 exceeds Energy Star 5.0 requirements by ten percent, Lenovo said. It includes post-consumer recycled content (PCC)

“Companies like Lenovo that choose third party certification to environmental standards are not only encouraging customer peace of mind, but they are raising the sustainability bar for their industry peers,” said UL Environment president Steve Wenc.

The T420 is part of Lenovo’s Environmentally Conscious Products program. Lenovo says it has used more than 9,500 metric tons of PCC since September 2005 to reduce use of raw materials, and all of its laptops contain PCC, with several upcoming models containing more than ten percent.

Lenovo’s ThinkCentre desktops and ThinkVision monitors use an average of 65 percent PCC.